


Broken Boy Soldiers

by voodoochild



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Angst, Community: fic_promptly, First Meetings, Gen, Vignette, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The meeting from "Home", from Richard's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Boy Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Fic Promptly prompt of "they like hir because they can't see what s/he's thinking.."

Maybe Richard spoke to him because he was reading, but he continued to speak because unlike the rest, Jimmy seemed to understand how ironic the book's title was: _The Tin Soldier_. Or, as Jimmy put it, "a bunch of baloney".

No soldier is made of tin, much as they wish it.

Richard has met dozens of soldiers, here in this hospital. The place is full of broken men, boys like him who went to war and left pieces behind. There are men missing limbs and men missing skin and all of them with broken souls, sharp-edged corners if you know where to look. Richard is just one of the ones whose losses are more obvious than others, and it hurts the others to look at him.

And then there's a blond-haired, blue-eyed man with a limp who doesn't look at Richard with pity. Richard doesn't know what Jimmy's thinking, just that he's looking Richard in his true eye and not at the mask.

Richard decides to tell Jimmy the story of the German - his crucible for who he can trust - and when Jimmy simply looks up at him with a calm assessment, nodding as if Richard had made the right choice, Richard knows that this is his new cause.

He will crouch in foxholes with James Darmody, stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the storm and follow him into whatever battle Jimmy chooses.

Jimmy's been to hell before, Richard learns, and maybe together, they'll find the way back.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a tin of toy soldiers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487881) by [Suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume)




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